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La Scena Online is the digital magazine of La Scene Musicale.Contents: News, Concert reviews, CD reviews, Interviews, Obituaries, etc; Editor: Wah Keung Chan; Assistant Editor: Andreanne Venne
ISSN: 1206-9973

Les Idées heureuses at Bourgie Hall, Nov. 12 Photo: Catherine St-Arnaud

Review | Medieval meets folk with Les Idées heureuses

By Heather Weinreb on 14 November 2024 Baroque and Early, Concert Reviews, Montreal

On Nov. 12, Les Idées heureuses presented their second concert of the season at Bourgie Hall. Jamais je ne t’oublierai : échos du Moyen Âge dans nos chants du terroir consisted of a program of French and French-Canadian folk music and Medieval works. As the title suggests, the program was conceived to illustrate the echoes of Medieval music in our local folk tradition. The concert was divided into five thematic sections—May, The Mother, Flowers, Cries, Goodbyes, and Dances—each featuring one folk song, arranged by Jean-François Daignault, and various Medieval works. What you missed: From its conception through to its execution,…

Scene from Hunagarian State Opera's Turandot. Photo: Valter Berecz / Hungarian State Opera

Review | Intriguingly ambiguous new Turandot at Hungarian State Opera

By Gianmarco Segato on 13 November 2024 Concert Reviews, Opera

Puccini’s final opera, Turandot, was famously left incomplete due to the composer’s untimely death. It premiered at Teatro alla Scala in 1926 using composer Franco Alfano’s ending based on fragments of vocal lines and indications for orchestration left by Puccini. Much controversy and critical dissatisfaction has always swirled around the Alfano ending prompting the commissioning of many alternate completions. The most famous of these is Italian composer Luciano Berio’s 2002 rendering which the Hungarian State Opera is currently using in their new production of Turandot, alternating in some performances with Alfano’s more familiar ending. Psychological Turandot As director Dóra Barta indicates…

Lebrecht Weekly | Miklos Rozsa’s Violin Concerto with LSO Live

By Norman Lebrecht on 8 November 2024 Lebrecht Weekly

I had tea once with Miklos Rozsa in a friend’s flat, around the corner from Abbey Road. It was my first encounter with a Golden Age Hollywood composer and I had far more curiosity than he was prepared to satisfy. He wanted to talk about his concert works, not movie scores. I kept reverting to The Jungle Book and Julius Caesar while he nudged me towards his neglected concertos. The Violin Concerto, written for Jascha Heifetz in 1953, took three years to reach the stage while the soloist fiddled around with the score. Heifetz had been savaged by critics for…

2024: The Year in Records

By Félix-Antoine Hamel on 8 November 2024 CD and Book Reviews, La Scena Online, Scena Jazz

As 2024 comes to an end, let’s take a look (and a listen) to those releases we may have missed this year… The Sky Will Still Be There TomorrowCharles Lloyd, saxophone; Jason Moran, piano; Larry Grenadier, bass; Brian Blade, drumsBlue Note Records At 86, Charles Lloyd could claim the title of “Grand Old Man of the Tenor” but maybe he is too idiosyncratic for that… On his latest for Blue Note, he is reunited with pianist Jason Moran and bassist Larry Grenadier, but it’s the presence of Brian Blade (on his first recorded meeting with Lloyd) that makes this one…

Cecil Taylor in Warsaw in 1984 by Matthias Creutzinger

Cecil Taylor, Dark and Luminous

By Félix-Antoine Hamel on 8 November 2024 CD and Book Reviews, La Scena Online, Scena Jazz

In the Brewing Luminous: The Life & Music of Cecil Taylorby Philip FreemanWolke Verlag, 2024, 344 p. Like his contemporaries and fellow avant-garde masters Bill Dixon and Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor (1929-2018) was not the easiest subject to approach for a music writer. Enigmatic, frequently baffling interviewers and critics who tried to approach him, he could be almost hostile at times—or at least a bit condescending. (This reviewer recalls an uncomfortable dialogue where Taylor tried to express to a French documentarist what it means to be born “on the wrong side of the tracks.”) At other moments, Taylor just enjoyed…

Artists of Alberta Ballet in Grimm. Photo: Paul McGrath

Review | Alberta Ballet’s perfectly nice Grimm

By Robin J Miller on 6 November 2024 Dance, La Scena Online, Scena Arts

Francesco Ventriglia became artistic director of Alberta Ballet in early 2024 with a vision: to blend tradition with innovation, to maintain the company’s roots in classical ballet while also exploring what it means to be a ballet company in the modern world. With his first production of the season, Ventriglia triumphed with one of the most traditional of all ballets, La Sylphide. His venture into innovation for his second production, Grimm (seen in Edmonton on October 25 and 26), proved to be far less exciting — but not because of the always excellent dancers. Choreographed for the company by Stefania…

Musica Pacifica. Photo credit: Claudine Jacques

Review | Musica Pacifica – Rockstars of Early Flemish Music

By Heather Weinreb on 1 November 2024 Baroque and Early, Classical Music, Concert Reviews

On October 23, 2024, the stage of Bourgie Hall was graced with the presence of one of America’s premiere baroque ensembles, Musica Pacifica, which presented a repertoire of music from the 14th-17th century Dutch provinces. The music by the night’s composers —Tarquinio Merula, Jacob van Eyck, Nicolaus À Kempis, Jan Pierterszoon Sweelinck, Bernardino Borlasca, Johannes Schenk, Philippus van Wichel, Carolus Hacquart, Cornelis Kist and Johann Jakob Walther — is largely unknown, even by early music aficionados. Judith Lindsberg (recorder) and Alexa Haynes-Pilon (viola da gamba) are the core members of Musica Pacifica. For their Montreal premiere, they were joined by…

First Prize and Audience Choice Prize winner Ariana Maubach (centre) with Ensemble Studio Competition judges (l-r) Roberto Mauro, Edith Wiens, and Elaine Overholt. Photo: Michael Cooper.

Review | Ariana Maubach wins COC competition

By Denise Lai on 1 November 2024 Arts Industry, Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Music Competition, Opera

The Canadian Opera Company’s Centre Stage Ensemble Studio Competition is one of the most exciting events in Canada’s opera world. Now in its 11th year, it is a celebration and fine showcase of young Canadian operatic talents. This year, out of 120 applicants and 78 auditions throughout the country, seven finalists—three sopranos, two mezzos, a baritone and a bass-baritone—were chosen to perform their final aria in front of a live and live-streamed audience, which also participated in voting for their favourite artist. Each vocalist was accompanied by the full force of the COC orchestra, under the direction of Johannes Debus.…

Lebrecht Weekly | Gabriel Fauré: Violin concerto (Naxos), Complete piano works (Calliope)

By Norman Lebrecht on 1 November 2024 Lebrecht Weekly

Fauré is the French composer the world finds hardest to dislike. While Debussy means custard to some tastes and Ravel an acute form of mustard, their senior colleague wore a bushy white moustache and wrote Claire de Lune. What’s not to like? Fauré’s reputation has barely changed since his death, 100 years ago this week. Fauré is admired as a supplier of salon songs to the Proustian set, as composer of the most-imitated Requiem, as organist of the elite Madeleine church in Paris and as reforming director of the crusty old Conservatoire. Take away the French accent and he could…

Photo: Allan Cabral

TSO Delights with Romantic Bruch & Rachmaninoff

By Denise Lai on 28 October 2024 Concert Reviews, Orchestral, Toronto

Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s Oct. 24th program featured two beloved Romantic works: Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in G major, and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 in E minor, with Italian conductor Gianandrea Noseda (Music Director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, DC) at the helm. As with most TSO concerts, the evening opened with and introduced audiences to a rarely performed modern piece. Goffredo Petrassi’s Concerto for Orchestra No. 2 is one of six concerti for orchestra the TSO is spotlighting this season. Petrassi, a highly regarded composer, conductor and teacher in his home country of Italy, is…

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